Rate NY-19 (GE)

[Boobs]

Strangely, should he win the special election, Molinaro is instantly drawn out of his district, as the new NY-19 contains none of Dutchess County, while Pat Ryan is running in the new 18th.

In general it seems like this will continue to be one of the perennial swing districts just by the nature of the area. Unlike the old NY-19, which was more exclusively a Hudson Valley seat and contained decent-sized urban areas along the Hudson, in addition to Albany exurbia, the new NY-19 sees a significant chunk of its electorate to be west of the Catskills. The remnant of the Hudson Valley is mostly small towns, which have shown to be the swingier electorate in the Valley. Molinaro is relatively well-known in the Hudson valley area,having been in one office or another since 19, and the area is full of Democrats very amenable to voting Republican for local office, something that had translated decently well in congressional elections in the previous decade.

The areas added to the district in the Southern tier have fewer rural Democrats, but the overall partisanship is pulled left by the inclusion of inflexibly blue Tompkins County, home to Ithaca. Additionally there’s a decent concentration of college towns in this area - the aforementioned Ithaca (Cornell), Binghamton (Binghamton U), Oneonta (SUNY Oneonta), and Cortland (SUNY Cortland) - which, with the exception of Ithaca, could be trouble for Democrats regarding turnout. Nevertheless Tompkins’s continual march toward the Democrats is a significant boon to democratic prospects as no such analogue exists in the Hudson Valley/the former boundaries of the seat; for example, even though Cuomo’s upstate performance in 2018 was almost record-settingly poor, he still improved significantly on his 2014 performance in Tompkins and matched the margins of Clinton and Obama in the county. Molinaro has far less of a local profile in this region, especially compared to the massive overperformances he achieved in the Hudson Valley region in his 2018 gubernatorial run.

Ultimately,  I think the overall environment will probably lead to a win for Republicans. This seat is full of swingy voters, which helped Democrats flip this area in 2018 and will help Republicans in November. It’s going to remain a tough fight for whoever wins, however, and Tompkins County’s inflexible voting patterns need to be noted, that even if the overall partisanship of the district has shifted right because of redistricting, it now has a lot fewer “promiscuous” Democrats thanks to Ithaca and other college towns. Turning those voters out is a different question. Lean R, but will probably become Likely R after the special election just because of the rather unknown quality of the Democratic candidates.

[Boobs]

Having said that, I still don't think it was worth plucking Delgado out of this district to be Lieutenant Governor. I feel pretty confident that he would have held this seat in November.

I imagine that due to the incumbents' musical chairs occurring in the lower Hudson Valley, and the fact that Delgado and his family live in Rhinebeck, Dutchess County, he would have run in the Biden +9 NY-18 that was "vacated" by Sean Patrick Maloney moving further south to NY-17. That would have left this seat open.